Hamas says the returned remains are those of Israeli officer Hadar Goldin, who was killed in the 2014 Gaza war / AFP

Israel said it had received on Sunday the remains of a hostage that Hamas said were those of Israeli officer Hadar Goldin, killed more than a decade ago in the 2014 Gaza war.

Israeli forensic experts are expected to determine the identity of the remains now that they have been brought to Israel.

If confirmed, Goldin would be the 24th deceased hostage whose remains have been returned by Hamas since the start of the ceasefire on October 10 that has halted the latest war in Gaza, which broke out in October 2023.

"Israel has received, via the Red Cross, the coffin of a fallen hostage that was transferred to IDF and Shin Bet personnel inside the Gaza Strip," the prime minister's office said.

Hamas' armed wing, the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, said earlier it had found Goldin's remains in a tunnel in Rafah the day before.

Goldin's body has been held in Gaza since his death. Until now, Hamas had never acknowledged his death nor possession of his remains.

Israeli media reported on Saturday that Israel had allowed Hamas and Red Cross personnel to search in an area under Israeli control in Rafah to locate Goldin's remains.

"Lieutenant Hadar Goldin fell in heroic combat during Operation Protective Edge" in 2014, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday.

"His body was abducted by Hamas, which refused to return him throughout this entire period."

- Killed in ambush -

Another Israeli soldier, Oron Shaul, was also killed in the six-week war in 2014. 

His body was recovered earlier this year during the latest all-out war, which erupted after Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

Goldin, 23, was part of an Israeli unit tasked with locating and destroying Hamas tunnels when he was killed on August 1, 2014, just hours after a 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire took effect.

The army at the time said militants ambushed his team, killing him and seizing his body.

"The terrorists emerged from a tunnel in Rafah and attacked IDF soldiers," government spokeswoman Shosh Bedrosian told journalists on Sunday.

"Hadar was shot and killed during this Hamas attack, with terrorists dragging his body back into the tunnel."

Previous efforts to retrieve the remains of Goldin and Shaul through prisoner swaps had failed.

"The return of his (Goldin's) body, after an 11-year delay, carries great significance," said Israeli columnist Amos Harel in the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper.

"It will close a painful chapter and send a message that Israel's commitment to leaving no soldier behind remains steadfast."

Israel listed Goldin among the deceased hostages whose remains it is seeking to repatriate under the ongoing US-brokered ceasefire deal to end the latest Gaza war.

At the start of the truce, Hamas was holding 20 living hostages and the bodies of 28 deceased captives.

It has since released all the living hostages and returned 23 remains of the deceased in line with the ceasefire terms.

In exchange, Israel has released nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners that had been in its custody and returned the bodies of hundreds killed in Gaza.

Apart from Goldin, four hostage bodies -- three Israeli and one Thai -- remain to be returned from Gaza, all of them seized during the October 2023 attack.

- Hostage buried -

Meanwhile, the family of Staff Sergeant Itay Chen laid him to rest on Sunday after his body was handed over just days ago.

Chen, a dual Israeli-US national, was working at the border with the Gaza Strip when Hamas and its allies launched their attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.

The Israeli military announced his death in March 2024, saying he had died in combat and his body had been taken to Gaza.

"On October 7th, 2023, when terror and chaos swept across the state of Israel, Itay Chen stood his ground in defence of others," US special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff said in a video eulogy released by Chen's family.

"In those harrowing moments, Itay revealed the quiet heroism that defines true courage, the willingness to face unthinkable danger so that others may live."

Hamas's attack resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures. 

The Israeli military's retaliatory campaign has since killed 69,176 Palestinians, also mostly civilians, according to Gaza's health ministry.

The ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the UN, does not specify the number of fighters killed within this total.

According to the Israeli military, 479 soldiers have also been killed in the campaign in Gaza since the start of the ground offensive at the end of October 2023.

bur-jd/dcp